Police Abuse – Violation of 4th Amendment

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7^TH Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Larry Nelson v. City of Chicago

Case No.: 12-3401

Officials: BAUER, RIPPLE, and SYKES, Circuit Judges

Practice Area: Police Abuse – Violation of 4^th Amendment

Appellee improperly stopped by police officers and subsequent trial rife with court errors warranting a new trial.

“On the other side of the ledger, the risk of prejudice from this testimony was enormous. It’s doubtful that the jury drew the distinction between an arrest and a legal finding of wrongdoing; where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Even assuming the jury accounted for this distinction, evidence of prior arrests—here numerous prior arrests—generally impugns character. And in a false-arrest case, the prejudice is even greater because it invites the jury to draw a propensity inference, forbidden by Rule 404(b), that the plaintiff is a serial law breaker and general troublemaker and the police must have had probable cause to arrest him.4 See Barber, 725 F.3d at 714 (noting that that other-arrest evidence in a false-arrest suit “presents a substantial risk that the jury will render a defense verdict based not on the evidence but on emotions or other improper motives, such as a belief that bad people should not be permitted to recover from honorable police officers”). Even considering the special deference we give to the trial judge’s evidentiary rulings, the evidence of Nelson’s prior arrests should not have been admitted in light of the narrow scope of his claimed damages and the inherent risk of unfair prejudice”

Reversed and Remanded

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.